Introduction
During the 2024 European Football Championship in Germany, Turkish National Football Team player Merih Demiral made the Grey Wolves gesture – a hand symbol associated with the Turkish far-right Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi; MHP) – while celebrating Turkey’s victory over Austria. The gesture provoked an immediate reaction. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), had already designated the Grey Wolves as an extremist organization (Verfassungsschutz 2023). Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (Reference Faeser2024) publicly condemned Demiral’s actions, stating that “the symbols of Turkish right-wing extremists have no place in our stadiums.” The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) swiftly issued a two-match ban on Demiral.
At first glance, this response appears to reflect Germany’s postwar vigilance against far-right extremism. Given the country’s historical reckoning with its Nazi past, such a stance might seem both necessary and consistent. Indeed, one might argue that far-right extremism poses a security threat to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) – a challenge to the foundational identity it constructed after 1945. Yet this narrative obscures a crucial historical irony: in publicly condemning a Turkish player for displaying far-right symbolism, the German government externalized a problem it helped create during the Cold War. Rather than prompting critical reflection, Faeser’s statement exemplified a pattern of selective amnesia – displacing the origins of the problem onto others while overlooking the FRG’s own role in cultivating Turkish far-right networks within Germany. That unacknowledged legacy lies at the heart of this article’s investigation.
As the article shows through extensive archival evidence, the FRG was not merely a bystander but an active facilitator of the Turkish far-right’s entrenchment on German soil. During the Cold War, the FRG and Turkey formed a strategic alliance based not merely on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) obligations, but on a shared ontological insecurity. For both states, communism was perceived not only as a geopolitical or ideological rival, but also as a threat to their very sense of self (Mitzen Reference Mitzen2006; Rumelili Reference Rumelili2020). The raison d’être of the West German and Turkish states was grounded in their ability to manage the anxiety they experienced in the face of communism. As such, political authority in both countries was built upon the capacity to cope with this enduring sense of insecurity.
The problematic approach, which either conceals or forgets the darker legacies of the Cold War, is not limited to Interior Minister Faeser’s reaction. In fact, members of the Left Party (die Linke) in the Bundestag (2016) sought to confront this legacy by submitting a formal inquiry about Hans-Eckhardt Kannapin, a figure whose role in enabling the rise of Turkish far-right nationalism in the FRG is documented in German and Turkish archival sources. Kannapin had extensive ties to the German and Turkish intelligence, the Turkish far right, and military elites. The inquiry requested information about his connections to the MHP, the German intelligence community, and relevant state authorities. In its written reply on August 5, 2016, the German Federal Government stated that it had “no knowledge” of any such activities and simply added that Kannapin had never worked for the Federal Intelligence Service (BND). In other words, nearly fifty years after his activities were “well known” to the German Embassy in Ankara – and after documented meetings with Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel and other officials – Kannapin had been reduced, officially, to a ghost (Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office [PAAA], B26/460, 25.6.1971). Either the government was unaware of the content of its own archives, or it was unwilling to share the truth with parliamentarians.
This selective amnesia underscores the contradiction in Germany’s current stance on the Grey Wolves. What is now condemned as extremism was once tolerated – if not tacitly supported – as part of a Cold War strategy. As ontological security studies (OSS) remind us, states, like individuals, may behave irrationally when their identity feels threatened (Krickel-Choi Reference Krickel-Choi2021, 4–9; Mitzen Reference Mitzen2006, 343). This article contends that anti-communism functioned precisely as such, driving actions motivated not only by strategic calculation but by existential anxiety. It addresses two interrelated research questions: How did the FRG and Turkey construct communism as an ontological security threat? And how did this shared anxiety shape their Cold War collaboration – particularly in diaspora governance and the empowerment of far-right actors? In answering these questions, the article applies the OSS framework to reinterpret Cold War alliances not merely as geopolitical alignments, but as those aimed to reaffirm state continuity and mitigate deep-seated anxieties (Steele Reference Steele2008). To answer these questions, the article unfolds in distinct thematic stages. It first lays out the theoretical lens of ontological security and explains how it illuminates Cold War anti-communism as a form of existential anxiety. It then examines how anti-communism shaped state identity and political order in the FRG and Turkey, respectively. A subsequent part turns to the strategic and economic foundations of West German patronage toward Turkey. Another explores how anxieties over diaspora and leftist mobilization – particularly through the Communist Party of Turkey (Türkiye Komünist Partisi; TKP) and Bizim Radyo, the radio station it operated in East Germany – deepened bilateral cooperation in diaspora governance. The final part investigates how Cold War intelligence coordination empowered far-right Turkish actors in Germany, tracing the long-term consequences of this covert alliance. The analysis is based on extensive archival research, drawing on previously unexamined or underutilized primary sources from German, Turkish, British, Austrian, and East German archives. These materials were collected through multiple research visits between 2017 and 2024. They provide the empirical foundation for the article’s analysis of transnational intelligence cooperation, diaspora governance, and the enabling of far-right networks.
Cold War anti-communism and the pursuit of ontological security
Ontological security, originally developed in psychology and sociology, refers to an actor’s need for a stable and predictable framework of experience that affirms its continuity and sustains its sense of self. In international relations, the concept has been extended to suggest that states, like individuals, seek not only physical protection but also “security of the self” – a coherent understanding of who they are in the world (Mitzen Reference Mitzen2006). States may experience anxiety from disruptions to the symbolic frameworks and habitual practices that sustain their self-understanding. In this context, elites may deploy symbolic narratives – such as anti-communist discourse – not merely as ideological positions, but because they resonate with anxieties about historical disruption, loss of orientation, and fear of disintegration. As Subotic (Reference Subotic2016) argues, such existential needs can be strategically manipulated; by portraying specific groups, ideologies, or crises as threats to the political self, elites legitimize extraordinary measures – from propaganda campaigns to coercive laws – that restore order and reaffirm the state’s projected image. In this way, managing anxiety becomes a powerful tool of rule – less about concrete achievements than about reasserting control through narrative and performance.
This framework helps illuminate how the Cold War anxieties of the FRG and Turkey were not only geopolitical but also existential. In the early Cold War period, both West German and Turkish elites were compelled to redefine the “subjective sense” of who their states were and how they belonged in world politics (Mitzen Reference Mitzen2006, 344). Alignment with the “Free World” offered not only security guarantees, but ontological validation. In West Germany, constructing a new liberal–democratic order required distancing the state from its Nazi past, even as the bureaucratic and economic structures of that era remained intact in certain respects. In Turkey, a similar process unfolded; adopting multiparty democracy was framed as a prerequisite for Western belonging, but this transition was tightly managed to exclude leftist actors and dissenting intellectuals.
As Krickel-Choi (Reference Krickel-Choi2024) argues, ontological security is best understood not simply as the continuity of identity, but as the affirmation of state personhood within a broader existential framework – one that sustains a state’s capacity to “be” through the recognition of its sovereignty, routines, and place in the world. After 1945, the ontological security of both the FRG and Turkey was closely tied to the preservation of sovereignty. The FRG was formed through the unification of three Western Allied occupation zones, while the eastern part of Germany became the German Democratic Republic (GDR), backed by the Soviet Union. For nearly three decades, the FRG refused to recognize the GDR as a legitimate state, continuing to describe it as the “Soviet Occupation Zone.” Communism thus represented a dual force for West German elites: a threat to the state’s sovereign status and cohesion, but also a condition that enabled West Germany to integrate into the Western alliance and reconstitute itself as a “normal” post-Nazi state (Franz Reference Franz, Creuzberger and Hoffmann2014).
In Turkey, the state was led by a generation of elites who had lived through the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the partition of the homeland, and the occupation of Anatolia by Allied forces. These traumas crystallized into what would later be called the “Sèvres Syndrome” – a persistent fear that foreign powers sought to dismantle the Turkish state (Soysal Reference Soysal, Martin and Keridis2004, 41). Against this backdrop, the bipolar order of the Cold War presented a stark choice. Aligning with the Western alliance – led by the United States (US), the only great power with no history of imperial claims over Ottoman or Turkish territory – appeared to be the surest path to safeguarding the state’s continuity. The US was not only a guarantor of security but also a model of modernization for the Turkish elite (Danforth Reference Danforth2021).
In both the FRG and Turkey, communism came to signify more than an ideological or strategic adversary; it was perceived as an existential danger to the state’s very being. Yet paradoxically, this perceived danger also created the conditions for consolidating sovereign authority and legitimizing alignment with the West. This paradox – where the very threat that generates anxiety simultaneously enables political cohesion and order – echoes what RD Laing (Reference Laing2010, 78–93) described as a schizoid condition – a situation in which the self is destabilized and structured by the same source of fear. In this sense, the Cold War anti-communist consensus in both countries functioned not merely as a policy stance, but as a foundation for securing the state’s self amid a turbulent international environment.
In both cases, anti-communism served as a foundational narrative that underpinned domestic legitimacy and international alignment. For the FRG, anti-totalitarianism – framed explicitly against communism – became part of the new raison d’état, offering both internal coherence and symbolic entry into the Western community of values (Creuzberger Reference Creuzberger2017, 4). In Turkey, the multiparty system revolved around two dominant parties, the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi; CHP) and the Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti; DP), both of which equated Westernization and anti-communism with patriotism. Those who challenged this consensus were marginalized or criminalized (Örnek Reference Örnek2015, 74–96). In both states, then, the fight against communism was not merely a matter of foreign policy alignment – it became a central component of ontological self-definition.
This shared anxiety about communism’s destabilizing potential helps explain why, even after aligning under NATO, Turkey and the FRG continued to intensify their cooperation throughout the Cold War. Their partnership was not driven solely by strategic interests, but also by a deeper need to preserve internal cohesion and political legitimacy in the face of a perceived threat. Cooperation between the two states deepened particularly after the migration of Turkish workers to the FRG in the early 1960s. Yet the anxiety surrounding communism persisted in both countries, as it could never be fully eliminated – thereby reinforcing regimes whose power and authority were sustained by this enduring struggle (Browning Reference Browning2018, 246; Rumelili Reference Rumelili2020, 269). It is no coincidence that, in the early Cold War period, intelligence and security institutions in both countries initiated “psychological warfare” and employed “unconventional warfare” methods to suppress this anxiety (Creuzberger Reference Creuzberger2017; Scott-Smith Reference Scott-Smith2011; Turhan Reference Turhan1999, 265–266). In this context, far-right organizations were viewed by both the FRG and Turkey as countermeasures against the left and were supported through extralegal methods. Both states also deployed forms of “religious nationalism” in their fight against communism – paralleling the dynamics that Kinnvall (Reference Kinnvall2004) identifies, but occurring nearly half a century earlier than in her case study. Anti-communism reached an “irrational” level, leading the FRG to support the rise of far-right Turkish organizations, despite its own infamous fascist regime prior to 1945 (Steele Reference Steele2008, 3). Meanwhile, in Turkey, the promotion of re-Islamization in the fight against the left significantly undermined the foundational principles of the secular Turkish Republic.
Throughout the Cold War, communist parties continued to operate as legal political actors in other NATO member states, securing more than 25 percent of the vote in countries like Italy and France and even coming to power in local governments. Nevertheless, communism continued to provoke existential anxiety in both the FRG and Turkey, despite the fact that communist parties had relatively little political influence. The Communist Party of Germany (KPD), founded after World War II, was shut down by the FRG’s Constitutional Court in 1956 (Major Reference Major1998). The TKP was considered an illegal organization and banned throughout the Cold War. The TKP moved its headquarters to Leipzig in the GDR in the early 1960s and the TKP’s influence on the Turkish working class, many of whose members migrated to the FRG from the late 1960s onwards and whose numbers would soon reach hundreds of thousands, together brought the two NATO members closer to each other (Gür Reference Gür2002, 45).
The FRG’s pursuit of sovereignty and redemption through anti-communism
The experience of the FRG in the Cold War vividly illustrates how a state’s pursuit of ontological security is fundamentally tied to affirming its sovereign self. The FRG’s post-1945 policies reveal an acute preoccupation with preserving its sovereign continuity and legitimacy as the German state. Notably, the FRG’s staunch anti-communism, often viewed as a simple ideological alignment with the West, in fact served a deeper existential function; it became a primary means for the FRG to manage anxiety about its own survival as a sovereign nation in the wake of Nazi defeat and national division. The Cold War opened with Germany a divided country, a status that would endure a few years until the Soviets withdrew from the Allied Control Council in 1948, a split which culminated in 1949 with two new German states: the FRG and the GDR.
Several factors made anti-communism an integral part of West Germany’s postwar reconstruction and political orientation. First, distancing the new state from the Nazi past required the FRG to adopt a democratic political order, emphasize individual freedoms, and align itself with the liberal West – principles presented as antithetical to the “authoritarianism” of the Soviet-backed GDR. By portraying itself as the “free” Germany, in contrast to the GDR’s “repressive” regime, the FRG could claim moral rehabilitation and acceptance in the Western world. Anti-communism thus functioned as a political and moral redemption narrative; West Germans presented themselves not only as having broken with Nazism but also as defenders of liberal democracy against a new “totalitarian” threat (Faulenbach Reference Faulenbach2008, 232). Second, the continuity and legitimacy of the West German state rested on denying the permanence of national division. Through the Hallstein Doctrine – introduced in 1955, which declared that the FRG would break diplomatic relations with any country that recognized the GDR – the FRG rejected the legitimacy of its eastern counterpart and asserted that Bonn alone represented the German nation. This approach cast communism as a foreign imposition on German territory and allowed West German elites to present the FRG as the sole bearer of national sovereignty, tasked with reuniting Germany under a free and democratic framework (Gray Reference Gray2003, 17–18). In this framework, communism was not merely an ideological adversary – it was an alien contamination that had to be contained until reunification could be achieved on Western terms.
Under the leadership of Konrad Adenauer, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which came to power in the FRG, sought to break out of foreign policy isolation and rejoin the Western alliance under US leadership. In this context, “Soviet expansionism” and “the threat of Communism” defined the FRG’s raison d’être. The FRG accepted its role as the Free World’s front bulwark against Soviet expansionism (Adenauer Reference Adenauer1980a, 587–588). Adenauer (Reference Adenauer1980b, 445) opposed the unification of the two Germanys under neutral conditions and rejected any equidistance between the two blocs, as in Austria’s case. He warned that the neutralization of a united Germany “would allow Soviet Russia to dominate all of Western Europe in a short time.”
Therefore, instead of unification, the CDU-led governments in the 1950s prioritized NATO membership as part of the country’s Western alliance objectives, which opened the door to removing obstacles to the FRG’s capacities and capabilities for armament in the name of national security. However, for this policy – which risked perpetuating the division between the two Germanys – to gain legitimacy in West German public opinion, it was essential to convince citizens that communism posed an ontological security issue. Thus, Adenauer (Reference Adenauer1980c, 110, 183) persistently used the term “Soviet Russia” instead of the Soviet Union, claiming that Moscow had adopted the expansionist campaign of “Panslavism,” by synthesizing it with communist ideology and employing it for Russian nationalism. A devout Catholic, Adenauer (Reference Adenauer1998, 79–82) declared in 1952 that the primary threat was not the Soviet Union’s military strength, but instead the “spiritual and moral dangers” posed by communism for Germany and the entire Christian world.
The threat of communism was employed to define the FRG as well as its external enemy and, by extension, who its internal enemies were and how the FRG should position itself in the international system (Mitzen Reference Mitzen2006; Subotic Reference Subotic2016). Groups identified as posing the greatest threats to the FRG’s security included those who opposed NATO membership, fearing it would obstruct the reunification of the two Germanys; those who objected to re-arming the state due to the legacy of the Nazi era; those advocating for a neutral foreign policy; and those who criticized liberal democracy and the post-1945 embrace of market capitalism, viewing it as rooted in economic class interests (Graf Reference Graf1984, 176–178). It is no coincidence that the West German Constitutional Court hearings on the banning of the KPD, which failed to qualify for parliament after just achieving 2 percent of the vote in the 1953 elections, began in November 1954, at the same time as the West German government decided to push for rearmament and join NATO. Adenauer evidently wanted to constrain the possibility for voices of political dissent to interfere with his policy moves on foreign policy and security. The court hearings paved the path which culminated in the closure of the KPD two years later, when anti-communism fortified its hold in West German politics.
Regarding the implementation of the law compensating individuals persecuted during the Nazi era, not only was the KPD’s top leadership ineligible for benefits, but, in some cases, even rank-and-file members of the Communist Party were excluded (Hoffmann Reference Hoffmann2017, 10). The anti-communist cudgel was wielded not only against marginal parties such as the KPD, but also to keep the main opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) in line. In the latter 1940s, the SPD advocated for the unification of Germany, a neutral foreign policy, and a third policy way differentiated from communist and capitalist socio-economic philosophies. Anti-communist pressures were so extensive that the SPD, with the Bad Godesberg Program announced in 1959, abandoned all references to Marxism and renounced its identity as a class-based party (Lösche and Walter Reference Lösche and Walter1992).
The SPD adopted the nature of a people’s party (Volkspartei), by advocating for capitalist reforms. Herbert Wehner, one of the leading politicians in the SPD, announced in his speech in the German Bundestag on June 30, 1960 that his party supported the FRG’s membership in NATO (Thompson Reference Thompson1993). The SPD had finally embraced Adenauer’s pro-Western foreign policy. As chancellor in 1969, SPD leader Willy Brandt formed a coalition with the liberal German Free Democratic Party (FDP), which reintroduced in 1972 the notorious Berufsverbot (occupational ban), a policy of the Adenauer era of the 1950s that targeted people who were believed to carry extreme right- or left-wing views.
With the rise of left-wing protests across Europe in 1968 and the formation of a new German Communist Party (DKP) in the same year, Brandt’s government took over as his state’s flag-bearer of anti-communism. One-tenth of the total workforce in the FRG was employed in the public sector. Citizens who did not embrace ideals supporting a democratic order and were alleged to be extremists were excluded from public service, and those who were already employed were targeted for dismissal. As the Social Democrats governed, the scope of anti-communism was expanded aggressively, as those who were suspected of communist allegiances and ties were not just targeted at the party and organizational levels but down to the grassroots level. Berufsverbot turned into a weapon of anti-communism under Cold War conditions. The policy impact was substantial in a period that stretched to the 1980s: 800,000 people were investigated, 3,000 were barred from applying for public service posts, and 136 were dismissed from public service (Dyson Reference Dyson1975; Graf Reference Graf1984, 191–192; Körner Reference Körner2003, 139).
“We would lose our independent existence”: building an anti-communist political order in Cold War Turkey
In May 1945, as the war in Europe ended, Turkish state elites found themselves internationally isolated. Turkey’s policy of neutrality during World War II – and its close trade relations with Nazi Germany – was now a liability in the postwar international system. The Red Army’s advance across Eastern Europe and the installation of Soviet-aligned regimes in the region, along with the strong presence of communist forces in neighboring Greece, raised fears in Ankara that the Soviet Union might support regime change in Turkey as well. This strategic anxiety prompted a sweeping realignment. Turkish leaders concluded that the country’s inclusion in the emerging Western alliance was the only viable path to safeguard the state’s sovereignty and continued existence. Changing the political system to a multiparty regime was seen as essential for joining the “Free World” under US leadership. While on the surface this transition was presented as democratization, in practice it was tightly managed; the political opposition could be tolerated, but real access to power would remain out of reach for the left. Hence anti-communism had been transformed into a national policy dominating every aspect of social and political life, in conjunction with the ever-present shadows of the Cold War (Örnek Reference Örnek2015, 63–64).
President İsmet İnönü, much like West German Chancellor Adenauer, believed that Moscow was “masking Russian imperialism with communism,” and argued that the Turkish masses should be provided with a persuasive antidote to counteract communist propaganda:
We would lose our independent existence through communism. This point should be emphasized against communist propaganda which is very aggressive in our country, at the moment. The discussion of doctrine is not so effective in awakening the masses. One has to say things that will catch the public’s attention (Erim Reference Erim2004, 75).
In 1946, he further warned that Soviet military intervention would not even be necessary; Moscow aimed to “collapse Turkey from within by arousing a subversive movement within the country, as a plot” (Turan Reference Turan2003).
In its final years, the CHP government embraced re-Islamization as part of its strategy to combat communism in the broader social sphere. As Kinnvall (Reference Kinnvall2004, 759) argued, religion “supplies existential answers to individuals’ quests for security by essentializing the product and providing a picture of totality, unity, and wholeness.” Turkish political elites concluded that the most effective strategy in combating communism, which they defined as “atheist” and “hostile to religion and God,” as well as any leftist movement they claimed was linked to communism, was the promotion of religious piety. The second half of the 1940s was marked by the opening of the Faculty of Theology and the widespread availability of İmam Hatip courses. Additionally, some tombs and shrines that had been closed in 1925 were reopened, and the pilgrimage to Mecca (Hac) was permitted. Thus, the re-Islamization of Turkey began not with the DP, which came to power in 1950, but actually during the last four years of CHP rule, the founding party of the Republic, as it focused on managing political sentiments under Cold War conditions (PAAA, B26/377, 3.8.1969).
After the DP’s electoral victory in May 1950, Turkey deepened its integration into the Western bloc by sending troops to Korea. The Directorate of Religious Affairs sanctified the war effort by calling Turkish soldiers religious warriors (mücahit) and the fallen “martyrs” (Milliyet, 11.12.1950). Members of the Peace Lovers Association, including Behice Boran – a prominent sociologist and one of Turkey’s leading Marxist intellectuals – who opposed the deployment, were arrested and sentenced for undermining national policy and public trust (Cumhuriyet, 31.12.1950). A year later, as NATO membership became a priority, 120 of 184 arrested TKP members were sentenced to prison (Milliyet, 8.10.1954). In an interview with the German journalist Alfred Joachim Fischer, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes likened communism to a virus “completely contrary to the Turkish existence, structure, and all our traditions,” and vowed to take any necessary measure to block its spread (DABCA, 102-633-5, 7.3.1952).
Following the 1960 military coup, the rise of leftist movements – especially the Workers’ Party of Turkey (Türkiye İşçi Partisi; TİP), trade union activism, and student mobilizations – increased domestic anxiety about communism. İnönü’s CHP repositioned itself as a center-left party, invoking Roosevelt’s New Deal as a model and presenting social democracy as the antidote to radicalism. Yet right-wing parties responded by accusing the CHP of promoting communism, reviving anti-leftist rhetoric with slogans like “Left of Center is the Road to Moscow.” Notably, this mirrored the CDU’s campaign in 1953: “All roads of Marxism lead to Moscow” (Ayçoberry Reference Ayçoberry, François and Schulze2001, 457).
Ironically, İnönü was now targeted by the same anti-communist discourse he had once helped establish. From 1965 to 1980, center-right leader Süleyman Demirel served over eight years as prime minister and continued to frame communism as “the most serious threat to the Republic since its founding” (Milliyet, 8.3.1975). While right-wing actors accused the CHP of being soft on communism, Bülent Ecevit, who became party leader in 1972, was a staunch anti-communist. He consistently argued that the most effective safeguard against communist radicalization was social democracy (Ecevit Reference Ecevit1957). In a letter to industrialist Vehbi Koç, Ecevit wrote that:
The left of center is the strongest wall, the most effective barrier, against this tide. If those on the right, driven by an excessive fear of communism or self-serving motives, tear down this barrier, they will leave the field open to communism and create the most favorable environment for the flood of extreme leftist movements (Yaşlı Reference Yaşlı2020, 94, 226–231).
From the mid-1960s onward, Turkey, like the FRG, expanded trade relations with the Soviet bloc. Yet this foreign policy pragmatism never extended to domestic politics. Anti-communism remained central to the internal political order. Demirel himself captured this duality: “We are against the communist regime, but not Communism in Russia. We do not want Communism in Turkey” (Bora Reference Bora2023, 143). A similar logic applied in West Germany, where Chancellor Willy Brandt advanced Ostpolitik abroad – seeking rapprochement with the Eastern bloc – while domestically reinforcing anti-communism through policies such as the Berufsverbot .
Financing the frontline: West German patronage of Turkey
In May 1948, Clemens Widmer, the Austrian ambassador to Ankara, asked the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a list of Austrian citizens who would not be allowed to enter Turkey. The response he received offered insightful clues about the underlying sentiments shaping Turkey’s security perception during the early Cold War:
Turkey will no longer be aggressive towards former Nazis. They do not want to see in Turkey those who were actively engaged in National Socialist activities and who could harm Turkey politically and economically. Apart from that, they will not make any difficulties for those who are seen as harmless. But they also should have no sympathy for Communists whatsoever (Austrian Archives of the Republic [AAR], 110.472, 13.5.1948).
This statement reflects more than a passive diplomatic gesture. In the early Cold War, individuals affiliated with the Nazi regime who were perceived as “harmless” were no longer unwelcome – not only in Turkey, but increasingly within the Western alliance. In West Germany, the Adenauer government appointed former Nazi Party member Theodor Oberländer to a cabinet post, and, with American support, installed Reinhard Gehlen – a former senior Nazi intelligence officer – as head of the newly established BND (Rigoll Reference Rigoll2013).
Turkish elites viewed the post-1945 alignment of Western powers, who had fought against Germany during World War II, alongside the FRG in an alliance against the Soviet Union as the most advantageous scenario for their interests, with Turkey also joining this alliance. Turkey became the first diplomatic assignment the FRG carried forward, outside the three occupying powers (Özren Reference Özren1999, 51). On October 24, 1950, Kurt von Kamphoevener, a West German diplomat, described his arrival in İstanbul as “returning to paradise,” adding that “our friends and enemies are mutual” (Cumhuriyet, 25.10.1950). But Turkey was not a paradise only for German diplomats – it was equally so for German capital and corporations. As economic relations between the two countries rapidly warmed, the FRG became Turkey’s largest trading partner by 1952. Major companies backed by fresh German capital, including “Krupp, Daimler Benz, Siemens, AEG, Merck, Bayer and Henkel,” came to dominate the Turkish market (Kleinschmidt Reference Kleinschmidt2012, 45–51).
In the second half of the 1950s, Turkey’s economy came under increasing strain due to a widening foreign trade deficit, rising inflation, and mounting debt. Faced with a deepening economic crisis, Ankara turned to its Western allies for support. From this period onward, the FRG became one of Turkey’s most vocal advocates within the Western alliance, particularly in securing loans and financial aid. Paul Leverkuehn (Reference Leverkuehn1957), a CDU member of parliament and influential figure in Adenauer’s Middle East policy, published an article in Die Zeit titled “A German-Friendly Turkish Prime Minister,” in which he praised Menderes and emphasized Turkey’s strategic importance. He argued that Turkey, having pursued a consistent anti-communist policy for decades, served as a vital buffer between the Soviet Union and the Middle East.
However, Menderes’ government struggled with mounting economic difficulties, as the entire financial burden of the military defense budget fell squarely on Ankara’s shoulders. Leverkuehn called upon NATO allies, especially Bonn, to provide financial aid to Menderes because of Turkey’s heavy load of military expenditures. Leverkuehn, who was familiar with Turkey and its military and intelligence operations, had served as chief of intelligence in İstanbul for the Nazi Germany government and intelligence operations, known as the Abwehr, from 1941 to 1944 (Berggötz Reference Berggötz1998, 170–174). Furthermore, West German diplomats in Ankara, in their reports to Bonn, pointed out that Turkey’s precarious economic status might compel them to draw closer to the Eastern bloc satellite orbit as well as the Soviet Union (PAAA, B26/55, 17.10.1960). On one hand, West German diplomats engaged in diplomatic lobbying to bring Ankara’s growing relations with Moscow to NATO’s attention, in an attempt to exert pressure on Turkey (Foreign and Commonwealth Office [FCO], 9/1611, 16.3.1972). On the other hand, between 1960 and 1984, Turkey received a grand total of 4.6 billion Deutsche Marks in loans and aid, making the country the second largest recipient of economic aid from the FRG during the Cold War, after India (PAAA, Zwischenarchiv 151.033, 26.11.1985). In granting these loans, Bonn supported its leading ally against communism and guaranteed the commercial investments of West German companies which were doing business in Turkey.
The 1970s global economic crisis, triggered by dramatic spikes in oil prices, hit Turkey as well. In the late 1970s, Ankara was unable to repay its debts and its Western allies came to its aid, by entrusting Bonn with managing a program to rescue the Turkish economy. In January 1979, when the leaders of the US, Britain, France, and Germany gathered at the Guadeloupe Summit, one of the topics they discussed was Turkey’s internal unrest and economic crisis. At the summit, it was decided that economic aid would be provided to Turkey, led by the FRG, to help the country overcome its economic difficulties. While organizing the economic aid, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told the Western leaders he consulted that if the necessary assistance was not provided to Ankara, “Turkey would either slip into the Soviet orbit or become an Islamic republic” (Prime Minister’s Office Records [PREM], 16/2284, 14.3.1979). Subsequently, Ankara announced the implementation of neoliberal market rules on January 24, 1980, but needed massive international loans and aid to get the economy back on its feet. Six days later, Dirk Oncken, the FRG’s ambassador in Ankara, met with Kenan Evren, chief of the general staff, and Haydar Saltık, the second chief of the general staff. After addressing the negative impact of the oil crisis and problems triggered by the regime upheavals in Afghanistan and Iran, Evren emphasized that “a strong army is indispensable” for Turkey, which had fought thirteen wars against Russia. However, for Ankara, given its weak economic circumstances, the real danger, according to Evren, was “not an open attack by the Soviet Union against Turkey, but an attempt to weaken it from within” (PAAA, Zwischenarchiv 115.910, 1.2.1980). Evren, who would seize power in Turkey through a military coup just seven months after this meeting, and Saltık, widely regarded as the mastermind behind the coup, told the West German ambassador that the West needed to “open its wallets” if Turkey were to successfully resist Soviet expansionism.
The September 12, 1980 military coup was met with concern in the FRG regarding the future of Turkish democracy. However, Bonn also viewed it as an opportunity, believing that the generals who seized power would restore order and stability to Turkish politics, which had been mired in domestic crises for years. Under the military regime, economic measures were strictly enforced, with social and political opposition silenced at gunpoint, ensuring that loans extended to Ankara by Western countries, particularly the FRG, could be repaid. As a result, West German military and economic aid to Turkey continued throughout the military regime. While most Western politicians refrained from visiting Ankara between 1980 and 1983, when the generals were in power, Hans-Dietrich Genscher became the first Western foreign minister to visit Turkey, in November 1981.
In April 1982, a report from the GDR embassy highlighted the FRG’s growing influence in Turkey, particularly in matters of security and intelligence, noting that the FRG’s position in Ankara had surpassed that of the US (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the GDR [MfAA], ZR 1537/84, 19.4.1982). The arrest, torture, executions, and widespread human rights violations under the military regime led the West German press to increasingly question Bonn’s policy of continuing financial support for the generals (Spiegel 1981). In an effort to counter these criticisms, former FRG ambassador to Ankara, Gustav Adolf Sonnenhol (Reference Sonnenhol1981), wrote an article for Frankfurter Allgemeine defending the military regime and Bonn’s stance. Sonnenhol reminded readers of the “danger of communism” that had shaped bilateral relations during the Cold War and warned that, without Western support, “General Evren would be invited to Moscow.”
This empirical narrative underscores how West German financial and diplomatic patronage toward Turkey was not merely an extension of economic self-interest, but a critical component of Cold War alliance-building rooted in ontological security concerns. Bonn’s sustained economic support – despite democratic backsliding and human rights violations – reflected a deeper anxiety about Turkey’s geopolitical orientation and internal stability. By underwriting Turkey’s economic survival and military resilience, the FRG helped reinforce a shared anti-communist identity and stabilized a key frontline state. This patronage thus exemplifies how existential anxieties and identity preservation, rather than purely strategic or normative considerations, shaped Cold War collaboration – supporting the broader argument in this paper that ontological security helps explain the logic and longevity of West German–Turkish alignment.
The TKP in the GDR, Turkish workers in the FRG: embodying Cold War anxiety in Turkish–West German relations
On April 19, 1958, an article in Turkish newspapers reported that a clandestine radio station had begun a thirty-minute broadcast, airing political oppositional views (Milliyet, 19.3.1958). The following day, the Office of the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior announced that this radio station was broadcasting from the GDR (Cumhuriyet, 20.3.1958). Bizim Radyo, established in the GDR as an affiliate of the TKP, continued its broadcasts throughout the Cold War. Although Ankara repeatedly filed formal complaints with both the Soviet Union and the GDR – formally recognized by Turkey only in 1974 – it was unable to halt the transmissions (Kıyanç Reference Kıyanç2021). The launch of Bizim Radyo and its role as the media arm of the TKP, broadcasting directly from the GDR, introduced a new dynamic in Turkish–West German relations.
The existence of Bizim Radyo became a politically expedient tool for various ideological actors in Turkey following the 1960 military coup. Although he had governed for a decade and routinely boasted of having eradicated communism, the deposed Prime Minister Menderes sought to deflect blame for the country’s unrest by accusing Bizim Radyo and communist agitators of orchestrating the events that precipitated the coup. In his Yassıada Court testimony, Menderes claimed that “Bizim Radyo had been provoking people for two years,” effectively alleging that communist propaganda had incited mass dissent (Ecevit Reference Ecevit1961). This scapegoating had already taken institutional form prior to the coup – in April 1960, the government-established Investigation Commission accused the opposition CHP of encouraging the public to listen to Bizim Radyo, thereby exposing citizens to “this grave propaganda and its harmful influence” (Resmi Gazete, 19.4.1960).
Menderes’ use of Bizim Radyo as a political weapon illustrates a paradoxical dynamic in Turkish discourse, wherein the very threat long declared to have been eliminated re-emerges as the root cause of systemic collapse. At the same time, Bülent Ecevit – then a rising figure within the center-left and a future leader of the CHP – was determined not to relinquish anti-communist discourse to the political right. Responding to Menderes, Ecevit (Reference Ecevit1961) published an article denouncing the former prime minister as a “liar” and a “blackmailer,” accusing him of discrediting protesting youth by branding them as agents of “communist provocations and suggestions.” Yet in a telling parallel, Ecevit echoed the existential language of the Cold War, insisting that Bizim Radyo, as a communist instrument, sought to “destroy Turkish society from its foundations” and thus posed a fundamental threat to national existence. The mutual invocation of Bizim Radyo by both the discredited Menderes and the ascendant center-left demonstrates that anti-communism in Turkey was not merely a top-down state ideology; rather, it functioned as a malleable and contested political narrative. Competing factions appropriated the threat of communism to bolster their own legitimacy and to position themselves as defenders of the Republic’s continuity and moral order.
From 1961 – the year a labor-force agreement between Turkey and the FRG was signed – onward, as waves of Turkish workers migrated to the FRG, many began listening to Bizim Radyo’s Turkish-language programs. These broadcasts made Turkish laborers more receptive to the TKP’s messages and, by extension, to other leftist organizations. The growing influence of leftist discourse among migrant workers – set against the broader backdrop of global leftist mobilization in the 1960s – intensified the ontological insecurity that both Turkey and the FRG associated with communism. The GDR, by amplifying the voice of the TKP through Bizim Radyo, came to be regarded by Turkey as a hostile actor – much in the same way the FRG viewed its eastern neighbor. This mutual anxiety contributed to a further convergence of Turkish and West German interests, particularly in the areas of propaganda, intelligence, and diaspora governance.
After Turkish migration to the FRG started – with 11,000 workers arriving in the first year alone – the Turkish government, with Ecevit as Minister of Labor, made it a top priority to shield these workers from the “harmful” ideas propagated by Bizim Radyo (PAAA, B26/463, 24.3.1972). To counteract this influence, the Turkish government pressed the West German ambassador in Ankara to launch Turkish-language radio programming with anti-communist content (PAAA, B26/170, 2.5.1962). When Ecevit visited the FRG, he asked West German authorities that “Turkish workers be defended against the Communist influence of Eastern radio broadcasts” (PAAA, B26/173, 31.5.1963). Although the FRG initially declined due to the relatively small size of the Turkish workforce, a Cologne-based network began Turkish-language programming in 1964, following Ankara’s persistent lobbying. While the FRG framed these broadcasts as a defensive measure against communist “dangers,” they ultimately failed to dispel the broader anxieties in Bonn and Ankara. As Bachleitner (Reference Bachleitner2021, 18) notes, anxiety – unlike fear – cannot be eliminated through security measures alone. Thus, Cold War efforts to neutralize the influence of Bizim Radyo reveal how deeply entrenched the communist “threat” had become in the ontological insecurity of both states. The broadcasts quickly became a recurring concern in Turkey’s relations not only with the GDR, but also with the Soviet Union and the FRG well into the late 1980s. Turkey repeatedly urged Moscow and East Berlin to shut down the broadcasts, and in 1972, Prime Minister Nihat Erim explicitly warned his West German counterparts about the dangers of communist propaganda targeting Turkish workers (MfAA, M1C 193/76, 18.3.1973; PAAA, B26/463, 24.3.1972; Qasımlı Reference Qasımlı2013, 389).
The growing influence of the TKP among Turkish workers and students in West Germany emerged as a new and consequential factor in FRG–Turkey relations. The TKP first established contact with Turkish workers in West Berlin and gradually expanded its reach across the FRG. At the same time, leftist ideas gained traction among Turkish university students in Germany, culminating in mass mobilizations and protests. In May 1968, Turkish students organized by the socialist Turkish Socialists’ Organization (TTO) participated in demonstrations in West Berlin, protesting US involvement in the Vietnam War. The Turkish Consulate in Berlin surveyed and photographed the TTO’s activities, demanded the school records of protesters from German universities, and threatened expulsion from school for those who took part (Aytul Reference Aytul1968). Prior to FRG Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger’s visit to Turkey, President Cevdet Sunay emphasized to the West German ambassador that “the exposure of workers in the FRG to leftist and even communist influences caused significant dissatisfaction in Turkey” (PAAA, B26/381, 2.9.1968).
Ankara was not alone in scrutinizing the leftist organizations established by Turks in Germany. In the same year, the BfV published a report stating that “Turkish communists were active in the FRG in order to influence their fellow citizens” (Verfassungsschutz 1968, 103). Accordingly, “communist radio stations” in Eastern Europe broadcast propaganda aimed at foreign workers in the FRG, including Turks. By 1972, Turks made up the largest share of foreign workers and residents in the country, and left-wing organizations increasingly attracted both Turkish students and workers. This growing influence led the BfV to scrutinize their movements and activities more thoroughly.
In 1974, the BfV estimated the number of Turks in extremist groups as 6,450, but the total quickly grew to 11,700 in 1976. Of these, 5,500 belonged to extreme right-wing groups while the remaining 6,200 were linked to extreme left-wing groups (Verfassungsschutz 1976, 141–176). According to the BfV report in 1976, although Turks constituted the largest group among foreign members of far-right organizations in the FRG, West German security authorities focused their attention more closely on far-left organizations, paying comparatively less attention to their far-right counterparts. Ultranationalist and Islamist organizations that appealed to Turks were seen as an antidote to communism by Ankara and Bonn (Özkan Reference Özkan2019). By 1980, in the FRG, the number of Turks in far-right groups had risen to 26,000, comprising 82 percent of all foreign members of far-right organizations. At the same time, 26,660 Turks were active in far-left groups, making up 34 percent of all foreign members of far-left organizations (Verfassungsschutz 1980, 138–139).
The combined influence of Bizim Radyo and the TKP within the Turkish diaspora became a transnational trigger for Cold War anxieties. As communist discourse gained traction among Turkish workers and students in the FRG, Turkey and West Germany intensified their coordination in surveillance, propaganda, and diaspora governance. Anti-communism thus extended beyond domestic politics into migrant spaces, where identity and ideological loyalty were contested. These dynamics reveal how Cold War cooperation between the FRG and Turkey was rooted in shared ontological insecurity, with the diaspora emerging as a key site of threat management.
Intelligence services and the making of far-right Turkish nationalist militancy
During the Cold War, for NATO member states, the fight against communism extended far beyond conventional diplomacy and military alliances, encompassing propaganda campaigns, judicial interventions, and extensive intelligence operations. As Daniele Ganser (Reference Ganser2005) demonstrated in a comprehensive study, the “anti-communist stay-behind armies” created under the supervision of Western intelligence agencies often included far-right paramilitary groups and extremist networks. In this context, the German and Turkish intelligence services – the BND and the Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MİT) – forged a close partnership in coordinating anti-communist efforts. This collaboration, however, was not limited to information-sharing or defensive security strategies. It involved the tacit empowerment of ultranationalist actors, many of whom had deep ties to violence, authoritarian ideologies, or even Nazi-era legacies. The architecture of this cooperation laid the groundwork for what would later become a textbook case of intelligence blowback: covert support for far-right Turkish nationalism in the 1970s ultimately contributed to the rise of entrenched extremism in both Turkey and the Turkish diaspora in Germany. The long-term consequences of these decisions – once seen as necessary countermeasures against leftist mobilization – continue to reverberate today.
The collaboration between the BND and MİT traces its origins to the Gehlen Organization in the late 1940s. When the BND established one of its first foreign bureaus in Turkey, Fuat Doğu – an influential figure in Turkish intelligence since the 1950s and head of the MİT for seven years after 1962 – personally attended a course led by Gehlen, the founder of the BND. Gehlen’s influence on Doğu was so profound that he incorporated Gehlen’s book into the MİT training curriculum (Schmidt-Eenboom Reference Schmidt-Eenboom1995, 29–30; Yalçın and Yurdakul Reference Yalçın and Yurdakul1999, 74–75; Yetkin Reference Yetkin2018, 377). East German newspapers confirmed this connection in 1964, reporting that twenty-three tons of weapons had been sent through Gehlen to Turkish intelligence from the German port of Kiel for distribution to Turkish militants in Cyprus (Berliner Zeitung, 19.1.1964). The relationship between Doğu and Gehlen, both staunch anti-communists, seemingly evolved into a friendship built on mutual respect. Gehlen (Reference Gehlen1972, 280) noted in his memoirs that immediately after leaving the BND, he traveled to İstanbul to bid farewell to his “old colleagues in the Turkish intelligence service.” In 1978, the BND assisted the MİT in adopting a new German-made data management system for information and documentation, which would later be used to identify and arrest thousands of Turkish citizens, mostly leftists, following the September 12, 1980 coup. Rainer Kesselring, the senior intelligence executive who oversaw the transfer of this surveillance technology to Ankara, was a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU) (Schmidt-Eenboom Reference Schmidt-Eenboom1995, 31).Footnote 1
On May 1, 1978, CSU leader Franz Josef Strauss met with Alparslan Türkeş, the leader of the MHP, in Munich. During the meeting, Strauss emphasized “the necessity of a joint fight against the communist threat,” paving the way for the MHP to expand its organization in the FRG, beginning with Bavaria (Roth Reference Roth1978, 6). Notably, three years prior to the Türkeş–Strauss meeting, the GDR embassy in Ankara had already highlighted the connections between the MHP and the CSU (MfAA, ZR 4505/14, 10.6.1975).
Murat Bayrak, another MHP politician present at the Türkeş–Strauss meeting, had previously fought against partisans in Yugoslavia as a member of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the Schutzstaffel (SS) Handschar, a unit established by the Nazis during World War II. After the war, he fled to Turkey. From the 1950s onward, Bayrak continued his anti-communist efforts, utilizing the fortune he amassed as a factory owner to finance the armed training of ultranationalist groups in Turkey (Altun Reference Altun2019). During the 1970s, he served as a member of parliament but was the only top MHP leader to evade arrest following the September 12, 1980 coup, fleeing to the FRG. In 1983, Bayrak sought asylum in the FRG, where West German official documents noted that he was “well-connected with high officials in Germany” and had “supported and financed extreme right-wing sectors” (PAAA, AV Neues Amt 18995, 23.12.1983; PAAA, Zwischenarchiv 195.698, 18.2.1987). He resided in the FRG during the 1980s and used his connections there to assist radical Islamist leader Cemalettin Kaplan in securing a residence permit (Sözer Reference Sözer1987).
Hans-Eckhardt Kannapin and Enver Altaylı were the other two important links between the German and Turkish intelligence services and ultranationalist groups. Kannapin, who had written articles on Turkish–Soviet relations in the 1960s, was an expert on Turkey well known to West German diplomats. He had also close relations with both the “top brass of the Turkish army” and the Demirel government, according to reports sent by the West German embassy in Ankara to Bonn, in 1971 (PAAA, B26/460, 1.6.1971; PAAA, B26/460, 25.6.1971). According to the BND document, Kannapin, who was also a CDU city councilor in Schwalmstadt in the state of Hesse, rented a hall for the activities of ultranationalist Turkish groups in 1979 (Neues Deutschland, 6.2.1979; PAAA, Zwischenarchiv 123.296, 29.5.1981). After the 1980 coup, the military prosecutor’s office prepared an indictment titled “MHP and Nationalist Organizations” (MHP ve Ülkücü Kuruluşlar; Sıkıyönetim Komutanlığı Askeri Savcılığı 1981, 140–141). In it, Hans-Eckhardt Kannapin was identified as a key figure in the nationalists’ “anti-communist” campaign in the FRG in 1976. The indictment includes the following excerpt from a report sent to Alparslan Türkeş by Enver Altaylı, the MHP’s general inspector in Germany:
On May 4, 1976, Dr. Kannapin will visit Cologne to introduce me to the head of the Turkey desk at the German domestic intelligence service. According to Dr. Kannapin, this individual is a CDU member and a former German officer, known for his staunch anti-Communist stance. Regarding our relationship with Dr. Kannapin, he acts as a protector, advocating for us within German security organizations and working to ensure that these organizations support, rather than obstruct, our efforts.
Enver Altaylı worked for the MİT from 1967 to 1974 at the request of Fuat Doğu, the head of the MİT, before leaving to lead the MHP’s activities in the FRG (Aytürk Reference Aytürk2017). What makes this network of relationships even more striking is the fact that Ruzi Nazar, an Uzbekistan-born Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer stationed in Ankara from 1959 to 1971, served as Altaylı’s protector (32. Gün 1999). After leaving Ankara in 1971, Nazar stayed in Bonn until 1983 (Altaylı Reference Altaylı2013, 379–381). According to a document sent by the BND to the FRG Foreign Office, Altaylı came to Cologne in 1967 to study for his doctorate, at the request of the head of intelligence. After 1973, he worked briefly at Deutsche Welle. The same BND document states that Altaylı was in contact with an employee at the US embassy (PAAA, Zwischenarchiv 123.296, 29.5.1981). That person would have been Nazar, who was in Bonn at the time. Nazar and Bayrak – both of whom had fought alongside Nazi Germany during World War II – along with extreme nationalist groups affiliated with the MHP, led by Türkeş, and former MİT officer Altaylı, forged closer ties in the 1970s through their shared anti-communist agenda in the FRG. A 1978 report by the GDR Ministry of State Security (STASI, MfS/HA-VI/15372, 1.11.1978) also confirmed Bonn’s support for the nationalists, stating: “The FRG and West Berlin authorities often passively support the work of these groups. The Federal German and West Berlin authorities allow the public activity of radical right-wing Turkish parties and organizations within their jurisdictions.” A STASI report (MfS/BVfS Potsdam/Abt. II/581, 1980) detailed the relationships between local CDU politicians in West Berlin and nationalist associations aligned with the MHP, as well as the close contacts between Kannapin and nationalist leaders such as Serdar Çelebi, Lokman Kundakçı, and Ali Batman – all of whom were implicated in Mehmet Ali Ağca’s attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. According to a later STASI report (MfS/HA/XXII/17756, 1988), Enver Altaylı was “used for terrorism by the intelligence services of NATO states.” Corroborating the information in the STASI report, journalist Uğur Mumcu (Reference Mumcu1990) also uncovered this network of connections in his newspaper column.
As a result of tolerating Turkish far-right organizations in the name of fighting communism in the FRG, the support given to them by some parts of the intelligence and security organs, and the relations established by the CDU/CSU, their power and membership numbers increased dramatically. By the mid-1980s, according to the BfV report (Verfassungsschutz 1985, 195), the number of Turkish members in far-left groups in the FRG was 15,260, while the number of Turkish members in far-right groups had nearly doubled to 29,000. Schmidt-Eenboom (Reference Schmidt-Eenboom1995, 31–33), who wrote a comprehensive book on Klaus Kinkel, the head of the BND between 1979 and 1982, emphasizes that Bonn turned a blind eye to the MİT’s operations against Turkish leftists in the FRG. After the 1980 coup, information about those who escaped from Turkey to the FRG and sought political asylum was sent by the BND to the MİT (Berliner Zeitung, 30.3.2017). On the one hand, the FRG welcomed political asylum seekers from Turkey. On the other hand, it gave information about them to Ankara and, in return, pressured the military regime to accept the return of some of the Turkish workers in the FRG (MfAA, M95 18.804, 1.8.1983).
Cold War anti-communism fostered not only formal cooperation between the BND and MİT but also enabled the covert empowerment of Turkish far-right actors across borders. Intelligence collaboration extended into political and social spheres, where ultranationalist networks – some with Nazi legacies – gained institutional backing and ideological legitimacy. Framed as necessary countermeasures against leftist mobilization, these actions were rooted in shared ontological anxieties about internal subversion. The long-term effects included the expansion of extremist groups within both Turkey and the diaspora, and the erosion of boundaries between state security, party politics, and paramilitary violence.
Conclusion
On March 12, 1971, the Turkish military ousted the elected government and launched a crackdown on the left, particularly within universities and trade unions. In İstanbul, General Faik Türün, commander of the First Army, turned to the FRG consulate for counterinsurgency guidance. Citing the Baader-Meinhof case, he requested documents and strategic information to combat Dev Genç (Revolutionary Youth Federation), Turkey’s own urban leftist movement (PAAA, B26/461, 23.2.1972). Bonn declined, citing “confidentiality and procedure” (PAAA, B26/461, 21.3.1972). Yet in 1976, the FRG was far more accommodating when Interior Minister Oğuzhan Asiltürk of the National Salvation Party visited with future defense minister Vecdi Gönül to request support for police modernization (PAAA, Zwischenarchiv 110.268, 7.1.1976). That July, three shiploads of equipment arrived from the FRG for use against leftist groups (PAAA, Zwischenarchiv 110.273, 9.7.1976). Asiltürk made clear that the bilateral cooperation targeted leftists, not Islamists, telling the ambassador that Christians and Muslims should “fight together against not only communism but also socialism” (PAAA, Zwischenarchiv 110.268, 10.2.1976).
The German ambassador in Ankara at the time, Sonnenhol, had longstanding ties to Nazi organizations. A declassified CIA (1965) report notes that in Gymnasium (school) he joined “Hitler’s youth,” became a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) in 1931, and served as an SS officer during World War II. His SS background later stirred controversy when he was nominated for a senior government position and again when he was appointed ambassador to apartheid South Africa, where his reputation as a staunch Nazi loyalist and his open defense of white minority rule drew further criticism (Neues Deutschland, 18.4.1968; Spiegel 1962). Given this record, it was no surprise – within the Cold War logic traced in this article – that his final posting was Turkey, a NATO ally where staunch anti-communism and quiet support for far-right networks aligned with Bonn’s strategic priorities. That General Türün, known as “the torturer,” and Islamist politician Oğuzhan Asiltürk both turned to Sonnenhol’s embassy in the 1970s underscores how Cold War alliances normalized and even rewarded authoritarian repression under the banner of anti-communism.
Yet this history has been quietly omitted from official memory. Twenty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, Enver Altaylı’s name resurfaced at a press conference with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Germany. Two years after the failed military coup in Turkey in 2016, Erdoğan was asked by a German journalist why Altaylı, who is also a German citizen, was imprisoned for his alleged involvement in the coup attempt. Despite widespread concerns over deteriorating conditions for human rights and fundamental freedoms in Turkey, Altaylı’s detention was the only case raised during the press conference. Erdoğan responded that Altaylı had roles within the “intelligence system” and that his case was now a judicial matter (TCCB 2018). In 2023, when the BfV (Verfassungsschutz 2023) described MHP-affiliated nationalists as a threat to the “democratic order,” the report included no reference to the FRG’s Cold War role in fostering their rise – or to figures like Sonnenhol who facilitated this process. This omission exemplifies the kind of historical whitewashing that has long obscured the roots of far-right Turkish mobilization in Germany.
This study set out to explore how the FRG and Turkey constructed communism as an ontological security threat and how this shared anxiety shaped their Cold War collaboration – particularly in diaspora governance and the empowerment of far-right actors. The application of the OSS lens has shown that the alliance between the two states was not solely a product of rational strategic calculation but was deeply embedded in existential concerns about preserving state continuity and identity. Anti-communism served as a powerful narrative through which both countries defined their political selves and delineated their enemies, at home and abroad. The empirical material demonstrates how these anxieties materialized in covert intelligence cooperation, diaspora surveillance, and the tacit endorsement of authoritarian and extremist actors. The OSS framework thus illuminates the often-irrational nature of Cold War alignments, showing how fear of ontological collapse – not just material insecurity – drove policies whose long-term consequences remain visible today.
Drawing from psychology, OSS demonstrate that, much like individuals, states too can act irrationally, in contrast to the assumptions of traditional security studies (Krickel-Choi Reference Krickel-Choi2021, 9). Despite their differing historical legacies, the ruling elites of the FRG and Turkey, who shared a common anxiety over communism during the Cold War, often engaged in actions that, when viewed from today’s perspective, appear quite irrational. Far-right movements, which can be seen as both a legacy and a consequence of this past irrationality, may now be considered a source of existential anxiety. Much like in the past, today’s efforts to address this anxiety often result in irrational responses.
Competing interests
The author declares no conflict of interest related to this study.
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